It was noted that recent experiments had revealed an unexpectedly strong size-effect in uniaxial compression tests of metallic micro-pillars, such as the flow stress increased with decreasing pillar diameter. Here, 3-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamics were used to simulate these experiments at the mesoscopic level. Although systems with a constant source size and density were simulated, the simulations showed a size effect related to size-dependent differences in details of the dislocation behaviour in excellent agreement with the experiments.

Discrete Dislocation Simulations of the Plasticity of Micro-Pillars Under Uniaxial Loading. J.Senger, D.Weygand, P.Gumbsch, O.Kraft: Scripta Materialia, 2008, 58[7], 587-90